Zahra Hashem: A Saudi Girl who teaches poor expat students free of cost

She teaches students free of cost: Zahra Hashem Al-Moslem is a Saudi female college student who is studying in the Abdul Rahman Bin Faisal University in the Al Khobar city located in the eastern province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She is providing tuition to many children of the poor families and does not charge a fee.

She especially takes time off from her weekly schedule to adjust the voluntary teachings. According to Al Arabiya English, the Saudi volunteer told that the idea started last year when she was not well and being treated at the hospital.

It all started from a hospital: She explained the incident saying that when she was taken to the hospital in her way she saw a boy who was holding his book and was asking for money from the different people. Zahra sat next to the boy and opened his book and started explaining him the things in his books.

She added that she loved the idea of teaching children who have no financial resources and also facing academic difficulties. Once she started teaching she felt that she is in love with the idea of teaching the children of needy families but she was worried how she will start and how she will advertise to make majority know about it.

The advertisement was the biggest challenge:One challenge she faced was the advertisement to spread awareness about the initiative. For that, she distributed flyers and communicated personally to the people living in the poor neighborhoods of Al-Khobar.

She disclosed in an interview that she used to tell the needy children that if they need the help of a private tutor she is available. The very next challenge was the selection of the place where she would take the private classes.

She started with a girl student: During her search for the place, she thought of a colleague who was living at a near place. She selected that place and started taking classes there. She mentioned that she started the class with a girl and a boy then the number of students increased to four girls and two boys.

As this Saudi student is living in the college campus so it was difficult for her to ask for the permission to leave to teach the children so she increased the hours of her private class to three hours to cover the school curriculum of the children.

How does she finance the project?She was asked that how she is financing this activity in response to which she said that she as a student lives on the stipend received from the university. She is teaching the preparatory year students in the university also for which she gets the stipend.

She stated that she has the housing so she is investing the money received from the university in teaching the poor students. She is very satisfied with her initiative and mentioned that she feels extremely happy when she sees her children improving.

An Inspiration for others: Zahra mentioned in an interview that she was testing their information before and after her classes and glad to notice a significant development in their level. The young Saudi girl is definitely setting an example for many people that charity can be done at a very small and personal level also.